Pediatrics medical journal: "My Child Play With Guns? Never!"

[cuchulainn]

http://www.healthcentral.com/news/NewsFullText.cfm?id=511557

My Child Play With Guns? Never!
A study finds many parents deem their child "too smart" to touch them, and researchers say adults need to take more responsibility.

By Nancy Deutsch
HealthScoutNews Reporter

MONDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthScoutNews) -- Most parents think their children would not touch a gun were they to come across one -- a notion that is not only likely to be false, but one that is fraught with danger.

A new study shows that 87 percent of parents believe their child would not play with a gun, mainly because they believe their child is too smart or knows better. Furthermore, those polled were so confident that a mere 12 percent of those who owned firearms safely locked them away, unloaded.

Susan M. Connor, a clinical research coordinator at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland and co-author of the study, suspected that parents underestimated their children's' curiosity about firearms when she began the study. Previous studies have shown that despite gun safety education, children willingly handle guns given the chance. What they wanted to know was the parents' reasoning for believing their own child would be the exception.

The study appears in the February issue of Pediatrics.

"Nearly half (of the 87 percent) said, 'My kid's too smart for that'," Connor says. Another 40 percent believed their child would stay away from the gun because they had been told sometime in the past that guns should not be tampered with.

When the researchers presented preliminary findings of this survey to a panel of six law enforcement officers, they found the same "selective blindness," she adds. "All said the same thing; everyone can agree that other parents' kids need protecting" but their own child would be the one that knows better, she notes.

Researchers conducted 628 surveys by phone; 311 rural households and 317 urban homes were contacted and those that said they had at least one child under the age of 16 either living in the home or spending time there on a regular basis were asked a variety of questions regarding gun safety.

As a whole, 19 percent of respondents said they had guns in their homes, a percentage that is significantly lower than the estimated national average of 30 percent to 35 percent. More rural respondents (28 percent) than urban (11 percent) kept arms.

Having younger children (aged 5 to 9) in the home was not associated with lower rates of gun ownership.

Those who did not have guns in the home seldom said they did not keep guns because they had children. Only 5 percent specifically cited the danger to kids as being a deterrent.

More of the respondents who had children and kept guns stored them safely (30 percent), than those with guns but no children (12 percent). But overall, only 11 percent of the rural respondents with guns locked them away safely, as did 14 percent of the urban respondents with guns.

Since, nationally, more than one in four households have guns, children are likely to be in homes with guns at some point, Connor notes. Parents need to realize that "all kids are curious. Kids in a group do things you never thought they'd do."

"Parents are putting the responsibility on kids instead of taking the responsibility," she adds. "Lock it up and know it's safe."

Those who speak with parents about gun safety, such as physicians, should think to ask not only what parents believe about guns but also what they believe about children's ability to control their curiosity should they come across a gun, she says.

Marjorie Hardy, an assistant professor of psychology at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., has studied the issue of children and gun safety before. "I'm not surprised that parents underestimate their child's fascination with guns," she says. "There are a lot of parents with a false sense of security."

Everyone who owns a gun should lock it away, empty, she says. Warning your child not to touch a gun is all well and good but hardly the answer, Hardy stresses. "Would you talk to your child about not taking poison and then leave it out?"

More information

For more information on children and guns, go to the Johnson County Family Crisis Center. The National Rifle Association also offers gun safety tips.

Copyright © 2003 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

[MonkeyMan]

Yet more proof that there's a whole bunch of "learnin' " that you just can't get out of a book.

 

[jmbg29]

None of this would ever be a problem if stupid people didn't breed. :banghead:

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I saw an experiment several years ago where they placed kids in a waiting room full of toys with a handgun stuck somewhere in the midst. The parents watched from a video monitor next door.

In every case in which the child had been exposed and trained about firearms in the home, the child either left the gun alone and played with something else or went outside and called an adult.

In the cases where the child had never even seen a real firearm, they picked it up, pointed it at other kids, looked down the barrel and even cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger if they were strong enough. They basically did everything they had seen done on TV.

The parents of these "my child will never..." kids were shocked and many stated they would have their kids properly educated in the near future. Of course, some said it just shows that we need to completely remove guns from society to protect our children.

 

[pax]

As a whole, 19 percent of respondents said they had guns in their homes, a percentage that is significantly lower than the estimated national average of 30 percent to 35 percent. More rural respondents (28 percent) than urban (11 percent) kept arms.

Yeah, some stranger calls up on the phone and wants to know if you own guns. What do you tell them?

Me? "Nope, don't own any guns, buh bye. Click."

Everyone who owns a gun should lock it away, empty, she says. Warning your child not to touch a gun is all well and good but hardly the answer, Hardy stresses. "Would you talk to your child about not taking poison and then leave it out?"

Um, yes. By the time a child is five years old or so, he or she can break into any "childproof" cabinet in the house, pull out any "child-safe" electrical plug, and generally get into anything his or her parents can open. There is no avoiding this, either. Locking things up is great before the kid reaches the age of reason. Once they are old enough to reason, however, they are old enough to figure out how to get into anything they really want to get into, and parents have to start relying more upon their brains and less upon their locks and gadgets.

My own kids (five boys) each have a very lively sense of curiousity and each was able to climb out of a crib at around 18 months. All of them were able to break into under-sink cabinets with safety latches well before age two, and the baby gates worked only until they were each around a year old. I do not think they were unusual, either -- what I think is that too many parents rely on locks and gadgets when they should instead be teaching the kids to obey when they are told not to do something.

As for guns, it's just like anything else. As long as the kid is curious and undisciplined, he's not going to be safe near anyone's gun, ever. Once his curiousity has been defanged and he's been taught to obey in general, he's going to be a lot safer -- especially if he knows he'll be rewarded and praised for doing the Right Thing.

pax